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Independent schools and "advanced" kids: national problem?
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Anonymous
It's a "have you stopped beating your wife?" kind of question based on a couple false premises (e.g. that independent schools don't meet the needs of "the most advanced kids" and that being more than one grade level ahead defines who "the most advanced" kids are). |
Anonymous
| It's not a question of being for or against meritocracy -- it's a question of how you define merit. |
Anonymous
Anonymous
I agree. I haven't seen anyone offer s shred of evidence for the claim that independent schools don't meet the needs of the most advanced students. |
Anonymous
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SAT is a stand in for WPSSI, ERB, SSAT, ISEE, ACT, GRE. I'm not worried about my bet. As sure as death and taxes, this private school booster has shelled out and will continue to shell out big bucks for additional tutoring, on top of the tuition she now pays, as she fuels the standardized test frenzy with her funds.
Why is all this necessary if her kids are getting a superlative education at the private school? I would think standardized tests for the lowly masses in public school would be a skip in the park for the highly educated. |
Anonymous
On the contrary, parents of kids in private school traditionally don't wait to join the standardized test frenzy when their kids are in the 11th grade. I'll tell you a private school trade secret .... they start much earlier in middle school with preparation and tutors/agencies when the scores don't count or show up on their records. In fact, for the majority of private school kids, the 11th grade will not be the first time they have taken the SAT. Most will have taken the test for practise by the 9th grade. |
Anonymous
Yes, I do agree that private schools have an edge here. They get cracking on that SAT thing early. |
Anonymous
| I went to public school and took the SATs in 7th grade (and I am sure that a lot of kids in public and private school in DC, MoCo and NoVa do too). |
Anonymous
| Only the super smart kids get to take the SATs in middle school. My brother was allowed to take it and my mom said "What for? He's not going to college next year." |
Anonymous
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I know it, you know it, we all know it...so why all the pretense. It is the private school students, and not public school students, that largely fuel the standardized test feeding frenzy and keep the standardized prep/tutoring (College Board) a healthy and profitable multi million dollar market.
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Anonymous
Categorically false, if you have a checkbook and can sign your name you can take the SAT in 4th grade or lower! Trust me. It's done. |
Anonymous
You need to dump the dumb analogies (hint: if it doesn't add understanding because it's basically there to look "cute", it's a bad analogy) and go back and re-read the first few pages of this thread. There, people talked about how many privates will accelerate 1 year ahead. But only magnets, and other MoCo schools, will accelerate two years ahead. |
Anonymous
| and while thanks for the compliment, truth be told I was never more than one year accelerated in math so I wouldn't meet the definition of advanced as defined on this thread. In fact, in second grade, when my district differentiated, and when I think many of the suburban districts in this area decide eligibility for giftedness, I was decidely average -- 3rd of 6 reading groups and middle of 3 math groups in a suburban school district in another state. I became a better student as time went on -- a pattern I think my child might follow, which is one of a multitude of factors as to why she is in private for now (my understanding, based on heresay, is that it is very hard to get re-classified in later years). I think that very few people are actually as pro-private vs. pro-public as this thread may suggest (at least I hope not). For most people, it depends on your particular options, your particular child at a particular age and your set of resources. I hope all of our kids have the best educational environment for them. |
Anonymous
Tons of kids in the DC area are one year advanced. This is consistent with so many of them being in the 99th WPPSI percentile 
So for these kids, the private school standard of teaching many at a year-higher grade is perfect. For the budding Einsteins, however, one year ahead isn't enough. Have you met any kids like this? I have. These are the kids who spend their free time writing computer programs and working on their Intel projects. Nobody's pushing them down some chute, either. These kids want and need more than one year ahead. |
Anonymous
| Why is it that these "budding Einsteins" so often have parents that are such obvious idiots? |